Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

A Test Score Is Forever
Let’s take a closer look at why, in the fixed mindset, it’s so crucial to be perfect
right now. It’s because one test—or one evaluation—can measure you forever.
Twenty  years  ago,  at  the  age  of  five,  Loretta  and  her  family  came  to  the
United  States.  A  few  days  later,  her  mother  took  her  to  her  new  school,  where
they  promptly  gave  her  a  test.  The  next  thing  she  knew,  she  was  in  her
kindergarten class—but it was not the Eagles, the elite kindergarten class.

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As  time  passed,  however,  Loretta  was  transferred  to  the  Eagles  and  she
remained  with  that  group  of  students  until  the  end  of  high  school,  garnering  a
bundle of academic prizes along the way. Yet she never felt she belonged.
That first test, she was convinced, diagnosed her fixed ability and said that she
was not a true Eagle. Never mind that she had been five years old and had just
made a radical change to a new country. Or that maybe there hadn’t been room
in the Eagles for a while. Or that maybe the school decided she would have an
easier transition in a more low-key class. There are so many ways to understand
what happened and what it meant. Unfortunately, she chose the wrong one. For
in  the  world  of  the  fixed  mindset,  there  is  no  way  to  become  an  Eagle.  If  you
were a true Eagle, you would have aced the test and been hailed as an Eagle at
once.
Is  Loretta  a  rare  case,  or  is  this  kind  of  thinking  more  common  than  we
realize?
To find out, we showed fifth graders a closed cardboard box and told them it
had  a  test  inside.  This  test,  we  said,  measured  an  important  school  ability.  We
told them nothing more. Then we asked them questions about the test. First, we
wanted  to  make  sure  that  they’d  accepted  our  description,  so  we  asked  them:
How  much  do  you  think  this  test  measures  an  important  school  ability?  All  of
them had taken our word for it.
Next we asked: Do you think this test measures how smart you are? And: Do
you think this test measures how smart you’ll be when you grow up?
Students  with  the  growth  mindset  had  taken  our  word  that  the  test  measured
an important ability, but they didn’t think it measured how smart they were. And
they  certainly  didn’t  think  it  would  tell  them  how  smart  they’d  be  when  they
grew up. In fact, one of them told us, “No way! Ain’t no test can do that.”
But  the  students  with  the  fixed  mindset  didn’t  simply  believe  the  test  could
measure an important ability. They also believed—just as strongly—that it could
measure how smart they were. And how smart they’d be when they grew up.
They granted one test the power to measure their most basic intelligence now
and  forever.  They  gave  this  test  the  power  to  define  them.  That’s  why  every
success is so important.